F1

Today is a sad day for followers of Formula One. Twenty years ago, an F1 driver was killed in a race-track accident. It was his first season in the sport, and he'd only competed in a few races. He was a 33 year-old from Austria by the name of Roland Ratzenberger. He died in the qualifying session for the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, coming off the track and hitting a wall at almost 200 mph.

Despite this awful tragedy, the race went ahead on the very next day. As a mark of respect and to pay tribute to a colleague, one of the most famous drivers the world has ever known took an Austrian flag with him in his car, and had planned to wave the flag at the end of the race.

But, one awful day was followed by another, and that driver never made it to the end of the race, coming off the track on lap 7 and into a concrete wall at almost 150 mph.

That driver's name: Ayrton Senna.

Appointment

Last night's blog turned out to be about right. Stage one completed in what I suspect could turn out to be a rather long and challenging process. Ho hum.

Prep

So, a call from the Building Society today preparing me for tomorrow's meeting. I have been warned - I need to take loads of stuff in with me to support my claims, and I get the feeling that I'm going to be given the third degree.

We'll see ...

Credit

I've gone back to being a Santander customer again, although I suppose I never properly left - we've had a cash ISA with them for a pretty long time now. Their 1-2-3 offers on both current account and credit card seemed too good to miss, and so I have obtained both. The current account comes with a selection of cash-back on various bill payments, as well as an appealing interest rate on credit balances, and the credit card comes with various cash-back deals at different shops, as well as 0% interest for 18 months. And, to clinch the deal, the rather rubbish rate of interest on the cash ISA that we have been getting up to now gets considerably better because we are current account customers with them again.

The plan is to load up the credit card during its 0% period, and rather than pay it off each month, leave the equivalent amount in the current account (or the ISA) earning interest. Overall, through a combination of cash-back and interest, could turn out to be world £50-100 per month.

The only temporary frustration is that whilst the credit card has arrived, I haven't been able to activate it yet, but hopefully a quick phone call tomorrow will sort that out (as well as a quick trip in to the branch sometime soon to get them to issue me with some new internet banking logon details so I can keep an eye on things).

Splendid - next money-saving plan is to sort out changing our energy supplier from the one we inherited when we moved in here to one with a cheaper tariff.

Bonfire

Tonight's bonfire was definitely the biggest blaze yet. Fuelled mostly by various bits of wood from John's garage, it is still smouldering away as I type this, and has consumed two car-loads of rubbish.

Joanna

When I'm feeling uptight, and I can't sleep at night,
I don't know how she knows, but she turns on the light,
And I tell her what's wrong, and she makes it alright,
So tenderly.

Knew the words long before I knew what they mean.
Now I do.

Behind

Getting a little bit behind with blogging this week. My excuse for yesterday was that I was at a work dinner in the evening, and didn't get home until just after midnight.

Hoping that normal service will be resumed from now on.

Early

No post yesterday - early to bed with headache.

Early start today - it's just after 7am and I'm already in an M26 queue.

Sent from my iPhone

Small World

Over the past few weeks, there have been a number of references (at least there have been if you follow a selection of Disney-themed social media feeds) to the fact that the "It's a Small World" attraction is 50 years old.

This is certainly the case, but actually the ride didn't open in Disneyland until 48 years ago in 1966, and obviously couldn't have opened in WDW half a century ago given that the whole park didn't open until 1971.

The reason that the attraction is 50 years old is because it made its debut at the New York World's Fair that took place in 1964, and which opened exactly half a century ago today. The fair took place on a site now known as the Flushing Meadows Corona Park (yes, the same Flushing Meadows as of the tennis tournament), and there are a couple of excellent posts done by Imagineering Disney which show both what remains of the World's Fair, and also some then and now photo comparisons.

As can be seen from the photos, the park seems like a rather sad place to visit today, something of a shadow of its former glory, and I'm sure that if you showed the "now" photos to a selection of people, they are far more likely to respond with recognition from a Men in Black movie rather than a World's Fair.

It's a Small World wasn't the only Disney attraction at the World's Fair - there were three others as well: Great Moments with Mr Lincoln; the Magic Skyway; and then, a particular favourite of mine, The Carousel of Progress ("There's a great big beautiful tomorrow, Shining at the end of every day ...").

As my family know to their cost, I am always extremely keen to take a spin around the Carousel of Progress should we find ourselves in Tomorrowland and the attraction is open (as, sadly, it seems to only be open at peak times these days). It paints a great picture of how things have moved on over the last hundred or more years (as well as a sometimes welcome air-conditioned 20 minute sit down part way through a busy Magic Kingdom day), and I think it would be wonderful if the Imagineers got their hands on the final scene and updated it. It's fun to see what the future looked like 20 years ago, but it would be even more fun to see what the future looks like today.

Speaking of what the future looks like, one of my favourite authors when I was growing up was Isaac Asimov, and whilst I wasn't bowled over when I finally read Foundation a little while ago, I still thoroughly enjoyed revisiting The Positronic Man, and will definitely be dipping back into the 50 or so books of his that I have on my bookshelves. As well as being the father of robotics, he was a great fan of predicting the future, both in fiction and in fact.

And, in fact, Isaac Asimov visited the 1964 World's Fair (I suppose it was pretty much on his doorstep after all), and after a visit to the Carousel of Progress, he was inspired to write an article, speculating about what life might be like in the year 2014 (note that the article refers to his visit to the General Electric pavilion, and doesn't mention Disney at all, but the Carousel of Progress was created by Disney for the GE pavilion). As is often the case with these things, some of his predictions seem a little bit laughable and wide of the mark, but equally there were some things that were pretty accurate as well.

You can find a copy of Asimov's article here.

(Note that I would have liked to include a photo of the Carousel of Progress to accompany this post. However, when I do a trawl through the "Magic Kingdom"-tagged photos in my Flickr archive, whilst there are hundreds of the Castle (!!), I can only see a couple which include CoP, and in both of those cases, the ride is in the background. Given that the foreground includes a certain young man sporting a spiky red hairdo, I thought it was probably best not to include them here!)

Traffic

Enjoying The Quarry at the moment, and thought I'd share a little bit of description with you which I thought was rather good. The main character is stood on a bridge over the motorway, watching the traffic go by:

"I find the sound of the traffic soothing. This is a busy stretch of motorway with only two lanes in each direction and at most times of the day the noise is almost continuous, with cars and light vehicles tearing past on the steel-grey tarmac below, the laden trucks labouring slowly and the unladen ones thundering quick past underneath. Their engines create one wash of sound, their slipstreams a second and their tyres on the road surface another. It all makes a sort of throaty choir of white noise, roaring a long shout of nothing into the sky from the cutting through the land. Rain on the tarmac makes the tyres sound louder but softer at the same time."

Happy Easter

Stuck on the sofa underneath a sleeping cat.

Thankfully have chocolate within reach to keep me going.

Happy Easter everyone.

Sent from my iPad

Frederic

Easter Saturday started with a mercy dash to the Ashford outlet stores for some more jeans for Jake, after a bit of a footballing mishap yesterday. Nicky had managed to rustle up a discount voucher by completing a survey of the previous visit, and so the discount paid for a T-shirt for him as well. Gap were doing a 50% off everything deal for the holiday weekend, and so I got a couple of jumpers and Nicky a hoodie.

Stopped in to the JL Home store on our way back to take another look at some of the furniture. Favourite chair of the moment is called "Sullivan", but sadly they don't do a fabric that looks like blue fur with purple spots!

This evening we've been to Frederic's in Maidstone with Carolyn and Chris. I had the rabbit!

Memory lane

Today Jake went up the road to visit his good friend Owen (and we joined him later in the afternoon to have tea with them) and so Nicky and I took the opportunity for a shopping trip into Maidstone.

And a successful trip it was too. I got a few new clothes, most notably some new swim shorts for holiday, covered in muppets! I also got a selection of bargain books - Scarlett Thomas's "Popco" for £2 from the Oxfam bookshop, three books in Smiths (two for me (Roy Grace 2 and the new Julian Barnes Levels of Life paperback) and one for Nicky (Jennifer Saunders' autobiography)) taking full advantage of a combination of BOGOHP and £5 off when spending £15 offers to end up getting the books for half price, and then in Waterstones one of the Times+ £2.99 offers mentioned previously - I got Man and Boy, which I have definitely read before, but don't appear to have a copy of. The shop assistant was completely unaware of the offer, which probably goes to show how much uptake there has been so far, but the offer came up on his till when he scanned the book and my voucher, and even better, when Nicky handed over her Waterstones loyalty card there were enough points on there to end up getting the book for free - result!

The final shopping success was from Richer Sounds. To mark the fact that tomorrow is Record Shop Day, they had a special offer on the Ion iLP turntable, at only £39.95. Even better, when we went in, they didn't have that model in stock, so gave us the next one up for the same price (albeit that I think the difference is that the next one up includes a record cleaner, but hey, every little counts!).

As we needed to head up the road to the Anderson's fairly soon after getting back from our shopping trip, I didn't get a chance to play with my new toy until we got back later this evening, but since then, the turntable is all set up, plugged into the laptop, and playing through the old computer speakers. It sounds fantastic for a cheap and cheerful unit, and I am loving listening to old records. The turntable came with the recording software on a CD, which obviously isn't much good to a MacBook Air, but I went onto Ion's website, and the software was easy to download, and even easier to get up and running with recording LPs onto iTunes. Combine all of this with the happy news that the record store in Brighton finally had THIS IS THE KING'S SINGERS in stock when I was in Brighton a week or so ago (for the bargain price of a fiver), and I am a very happy man who will be enjoying singing along to "God Bless Joanna", "It was almost like a song", "The Gambler" and so on for the foreseeable future.

Anthony Haynes

The short week is over and the long weekend can begin.

I should really sit here and write a long tirade of a blog post having just watched another documentary about death row, but I have a feeling that if I hunt in the archive, there are probably some such posts already there, written after watching similar programmes.

Besides which, I think most people who know me already know my views on the subject, and the truth is that I find the whole thing just unspeakably sad.

So, whilst he took away someone's future forever, and dramatically changed the lives of many others, I will head to bed now wondering what the future might hold for Anthony Haynes.

Accident

The plan for today was pretty simple. Do an early conference call with some overseas colleagues from home, and then head into the office.

And, the plan went well, up until I made it onto the M26 at about 9.40 this morning, got a short way along it, and stopped. There I stayed, for about two and a half hours, whilst a huge number of emergency vehicles came past on the hard shoulder, several helicopters came over (some medical and some media it turned out), and we all got out and wandered around the carriageway for a while.

Eventually, the police worked their way up from the back of the queue, turning us around so that we could drive back along the road in the wrong direction, and off at the Wrotham turn.

Still, a relaxing break in the sunshine compared to the terrible events that took place at the front of the queue. All we can do is pray for the families of the people who set out on journeys this morning, and never made it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-27049165

25 years

Following on from a post yesterday about an anniversary, today is another one, only this time both infinitely more important, and infinitely sadder.

I vaguely recall FA Cup semi final weekend in 1989. I was at home at Maidstone Road, and the TV in the lounge was on, with coverage from the game. But, as we know, the game didn't get very far, and soon the pictures stopped being about football, and started to be about confusion and chaos, as we watched a national tragedy unfold before our eyes.

The 80s were when I discovered football, and for me it started with the FA Cup. I decided to choose a side in the 81 final, and have been a Spurs fan ever since, only just avoiding becoming a Manchester City follower. However, there really was no question which the team of the decade was - Liverpool FC. At times, they played the best football by a mile, and had sides packed full of stars that we remember fondly even now: Bruce Grobbelaar, the comedy goalkeeper with the wobbly knees; Alan Hansen, captain, and solid as a rock in defence; Jan Molby, the laid back playmaker in midfield who could read the game so well he rarely needed to break into a jog; John Barnes, the quick-footed winger who thought he could rap; and, some fantastic strikers - first Ian Rush and then John Aldridge.

Liverpool FC have been through some tough times since those glory days, both on and off the pitch. But, maybe things are about to change. There is to be another inquest into what happened on that awful day a quarter of a century ago, and maybe we will get to the truth about what the sequence of mistakes and mishaps were that led to the death of 96 innocent football fans.

And on the football field, maybe Stevie Gerrard will get to hold the Premier League trophy aloft at the end of the season, and personally, I think that would be fantastic - for the team, the fans, the city, the whole of football, and just in a very very small way, for the families that have suffered so much and for so long.

40 years

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Sunday Times lists of bestselling books (which is actually today), yesterday's paper ran a list of the top 100 of the bestsellers, I think judged based on the number of weeks spent in the charts.

A quick look through the list reveals that I have read about 20 of them (difficult to be sure exactly as precise reading records only began three years ago - apart from a year or so in the mid 90s when they got recorded in a book which I have subsequently lost, thereby demonstrating the benefits of the internet for the forgetful).

The other bit of good news was that Times+ members can buy a book each week from the list from Waterstones for the bargain price of £2.99. I might have to pop in tomorrow to try that out.

100

Sat here watching the final round of the Masters, and it's got to that stage of the evening when anything other than a Bubba victory would come as a fairly large surprise.

And, as is tradition, this post is to mark the 100 days until our next trip to the US. Can't wait.

Saturday

Reading the paper

+

going for coffee at Cornerstone

+

spending time with family

+

a few games of table tennis and a kick about

+

watching the golf from Augusta

=

A relaxing Saturday

Sue

When I was about Jake's age, or maybe a year younger, I can remember that there were two books that I read based on recommendations from school friends. One was The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, and the other was The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend.

I may well end up revisiting the Terry Brooks books sometime soon (the truth being that I got quite considerably ahead with buying books in the Shannara series than I have thus far got round to reading, so I really ought to make the effort), and I recently went back to the Adrian Mole books, filled in the gaps in my collection, and read through from volumes 1 to 8.

Driving to work today, the sad news came on the radio that Sue Townsend has died, and at the age of just 68. When I finished book 8 at the start of the year, I did a little rummaging online to see if there might be a volume 9 sometime soon, and I think that I managed to find some encouraging rumours.

I wonder if Mrs Townsend might have left us all a few manuscripts to be published as a parting gift?

Bargains

Whilst we were at the Ideal Home Show a couple of weeks ago, we renewed our Costco membership. It was due anyway, and they gave us a bottle of wine for doing so, so it seemed like a good idea.

So, this evening, after Jake and I had endured our 6-monthly reprimand from the dentist, we decided to head over to Thurrock to pick up some bargains. As always, a trip to Costco is a slightly surreal experience. There can't be too many shops that sell the full range from hot tubs to golf clubs, and from cheese to TVs (sadly, out of that selection, we only came home with some cheese!).

We picked up some of our regular Costco supplies - brownie mix, San Pellegrino, and chocolate shortbread. Sounds like the ideal accompaniments to a weekend of watching the Masters!

The other bargain news of the day is that Nicky has been shopping around for front door suppliers, and having been a bit disappointed by the quote from the firm that did our door and windows at Round Wood, seems to have managed to find an alternative firm who will supply and fit the exact same door for over £1,000 less. Nice work!

Floor

Exciting news. Got home from work today to discover a hall with flooring throughout. Will take a bit of getting used to - had grown accustomed to concrete!

Shopping?

I had a lunch in London today, and was due to meet up in an office just off Piccadilly at 12.30. As my travel had gone smoothly, I was a little ahead of schedule, and so had time for a quick stroll. So, I walked a little further along, and up Bond Street.

I went and had a browse around the Ralph Lauren store (obviously I was doing my bit to try to even up the staff : customers ratio, although I think it did remain at more than 1 : 1 throughout the time that I was in there). Let's just say, I could have spent a seriously large, nay huge, amount of money in there, but for the time being I managed to avoid temptation.

For the time being ...

2 O2 pics

Still reliving the enjoyment of last night's concert, here are a couple of pictures.

Barlow

Well it's nearly Monday so not too long a post, but a great day as well as being a busy one. Nicky and I were up and out at about 9.30, parked the car at the O2 and got on the tube to have a day of London shopping. We took in Stratford, Tottenham Court Road, and John Lewis Oxford Street, and have found some strong contenders in the home improvement plans. We've pretty much settled on a new dining table (Keep range from JL) as well as dining chairs (Habitat) and have lots of other ideas to consider.

Once we were all shopped out it was back on the tube to the O2, and this evening we were at the Gary Barlow concert there. He did a fantastic show - a great mix of the old and the new, and we loved every song.

And so to bed with a tune in our hearts!

Cool

It's been a pretty cool Saturday.

For reasons unknown, Nicky and I were both awake really early, so we came and made ourselves some coffees and took them back to bed for a while. A pretty quiet morning, the highlight of which was a full English (and when I say full, I really mean it - sausage, bacon, fried bread, beans, black pudding, mushrooms, fried egg).

Nicky and I took the dog out for a walk in the woods, and that helped to finish off clearing my head from the remains of yesterday's headache. We stopped in at Oaks Dene, and while we were there we booked up tickets for this afternoon's Gillingham v Rotherham game (Granddad's treat - thanks very much), and once we'd walked the dog back home, and Jake and I had enjoyed a few games of table tennis (I lost the decider) Nicky gave me, Jake and Granddad a lift over to Gillingham to the football ground.

Despite having lived in the area for almost my entire life and Gillingham being my closest league team, this was my very first trip to the stadium. Granddad explained that he'd been to see the same fixture back in 1971, and despite his team going up, that time Gillingham ended up winning 3-1.

Well, today's game was a belter. Rotherham opened the scoring within the first minute and pretty much dominated the first half of the first half, but in one of Gillingham's rare visits to the opposing penalty area, their man mountain of a centre forward headed an equaliser from a free kick. This inspired the home team and they ended up going in 2-1 up.


Rotherham equalised early in the second half, and the scoreline stayed that way for most of the second half, but with about ten minutes to go on of the Rotherham defenders was dispossessed on the edge of his own area, and the Gillingham forward took the ball on before confidently chipping the keeper. The crowd went potty, and it looked like we were on for a home win, but amazingly the away team scored twice in the last five minutes, and the Gills found themselves on the wrong end of a seven goal thriller.

The funniest thing was that we were sat with the home fans, and one member of our party was finding it quite difficult to contain his delight towards the end of the game. Thankfully we didn't get thrown out.

Our taxi service did a great job of picking us up at the end of the game, and back home this evening we've enjoyed a yummy home made lasagne, before sitting down for film night with popcorn and maltesers.

And, I am delighted to say that the film was tremendous. Walt Disney Animation have been relying on Pixar to deliver the blockbusters for far too long, but in "Frozen" they've come up trumps with a classic that over the years will no doubt take its rightful place alongside the likes of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. No wonder it has become the highest grossing animated film of all time (surpassing Toy Story 3). We failed to get to see it at the cinema, and so I made a point of getting the Blue-ray as soon as it came out (along with Saving Mr Banks, so we can look forward to another film night some time soon).

The film's score was great - some fantastic songs - I think I might have to buy the CD. Nicky is trying to decide whether Olaf or Sven was her favourite character.

Right, that's enough from me for now, I'm going to watch MOTD - mind you, none of those games will be a seven goal thriller.

No holes

Early Saturday blog to make up for lack of posting on Friday - caused by headache that came on during the evening and required retiring to bed. I seem to be doing a great job of having headaches whilst wearing my heart monitor - obviously trying to perform for the doctor! I'm looking forward to taking it off tomorrow, to get rid of the sticky pads and wires.

Exciting house news from two homes. Firstly, we no longer have holes in the floor in the hall. After more calls to insurance companies than I care to remember, the contractors finally arrived for the first time yesterday and have filled the holes. They may not be back for a couple of weeks to continue with putting the floor back down, but the important thing to note is that work has finally started.

Unfortunately, the animals of the house, particularly the feline ones, took a little too much of an interest at times in what was going on in the hall.


The other exciting house news is that Oaks Dene is now up on Rightmove. If you know anyone who wants to buy a house, send them to this link.

Two pictures

Another two pictures for today's post, one taken by me and one taken by Nicky. They show a Routemaster bus going past St Paul's Cathedral, and a flower in our garden!

Notice

Quick post tonight as early night required - distinct lack of sleep last night now catching up with me.

Big news of the day is that the planning notice has been pinned up on the roadside, so another step towards planning permission.

And a couple of pictures for today - one of tulips on the windowsill, and one of Sahara dust all over my car.

Wired

Another trip to the medical centre today as the saga of neurologist referring me to cardiologist referring me to another cardiologist referring me to the neurologist referring me to the first cardiologist continues.

This time it was a case of popping in for a quick ECG plus getting kitted out with another heart monitor, just the same as the one I had in December, but this time I get to wear it for five days rather than two.

And who knows, perhaps I might have given it some interesting readings today, thanks to a rotten headache.

We'll see next week, when I go back for the consultation.